


A Tale to Pass the Time

by VioletArroyo



Series: Nine Tales [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Angst, Dominion War, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, Season/Series 06, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VioletArroyo/pseuds/VioletArroyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garak is injured during an attack on the station and ends up spending time in the infirmary listening to an old Earth story told by a visiting member of the Federation News Service.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tale to Pass the Time

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: This is the first fanfic I ever created knowing I would post it, so quality is what it is. The series is a WIP, so if you've unanswered questions, good, 'cause so do I. ;) I've made other works in the past (long time ago) that I never shared with anyone and never will (god, they're bad!). I have no beta, so take that under advisement. I also know the OFC might be a bit irritating to some, but no, she's not a Mary Sue, she's just annoyingly smug. It was on purpose. (Reasons will be revealed in the rest of the series, when I eventually write it...I have about 1/2 the next story complete.)
> 
> I am posting this in the original (only one rough draft before this), but I do have plans to edit it as I continue the series, so if you have suggestions or helpful critical feedback, I'm a big girl who can take and would appreciate honesty. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own these guys, I just love them enough to want to write about them. No money made. I wish....

            Garak lay in the biobed, thoroughly annoyed. The minor attack, only consisting of two Jem-Hadar raiders, had rattled the light above his workbench loose as he worked his way through another encryption for Sisko. Now, he was stuck in this damn infirmary, waiting for the good doctor to release him. According to Bashir, Garak’s concussion was severe enough to warrant observation for at least the next two hours. Garak had strenuously objected, but when Bashir threatened, not without significant undertones, to put the Cardassian in restraints to keep him on the biobed, Garak relented.  
           He tried to entertain himself by watching the doctor work. He let his thoughts drift, contemplating the distance between them. The gulf continuously expanded, despite both their efforts to reinitiate their weekly lunches after that incident in Bashir’s insipid “spy” holoprogram last year. After abandoning the station, suffering close confinement on the Defiant and then returning to a dead Ziyal and a station much in need of repair, neither of them had felt much up to the task, especially in the face of the war.  
            _And don’t get me started on how he managed to keep his augmented status from me…ME of all people…the nerve of the man, to lecture me about my lies for all those years and then to…it’s beyond acceptance, the hypocritical little—_  
            A woman, fairly young-looking, entered the infirmary, cradling what appeared to be a severely broken arm. She carried herself with a certain dignity which seemed devoid of pain and far beyond her years. This intrigued Garak. When she turned and he could see her face, he fought the urge to inhale sharply. She had the characteristic black irises of a Betazoid and Garak immediately shifted from his normal, alert awareness to an even higher acute status. He was already, instinctively, using long-ago drilled-in techniques to block off his thoughts and emotions. She shifted her gaze slightly in his direction for a moment, but did not register that she’d noticed anything. Again, Garak was intrigued by her poise. Bashir turned toward her, introduced himself, said he’d be with her in a moment, and then went back to the patient he was preparing for surgery. He finished shortly and turned back to the woman. Garak rolled over slightly, to better hear the conversation.  
            “That’s a nasty fracture. Another five centimeters of bone in that direction and the ulnar would have fully pierced the skin. As it is, there’s quite a bit of muscular damage from the fragments. You’re lucky the nerve isn’t too damaged. Looks like it was jammed, somehow?”  
            “Yes. I was on a turbolift when the station began to shake. I put my arm around the support bar to keep myself from falling. Then the station rocked more violently. I was twisted and the arm caught between the turbolift wall and the rail.” Her voice contained a hint of humor and Bashir was obviously impressed.  
            “I can’t believe you’re not in more pain. Your neuroreceptors are hardly firing.”  
            She offered him a strained smile, “It hurts quite a bit, but I’ve managed to calm my pain center. It’s using a lot of my self-control, however, so if you could give me an analgesic? I already know you need to see to the more severely injured patient over there, so a little pain relief should do for now.”  
            Bashir smiled, placing a hypo to her neck, continuing to converse lightly, even as Garak watched the human’s shoulders tighten almost imperceptibly, “I’ve met maybe one or two Betazoids with that level of control. It’s normally something I associate with Vulcans, though, Miss…?”  
            “Varoxa. Isada Varoxa. I’m a daughter of the third house of Betazed. We’re rather strong, telepathically. It takes a great deal of understanding of one’s own mind in order to properly master the innate skills of a higher telepath. Thank you for the pain relief.”  
            Bashir smiled at her as he walked away for surgery, but as Garak rolled back onto his back, he could see a bit of apprehension leaking through the doctor’s normally pleasant bedside manner. _Oh, really, Doctor, as if you have any secrets left, anymore…you’ve far less to fear than I do. From her, at least._ She laughed, softly, and he looked at her askance, slightly refocusing his eyes, but not otherwise changing his features. There was no way she could have read him. The Order’s training against the type of telepathy Betazoids employed is implacable. _Isn’t it?_ He decided to test the waters.  
            “You’ve a strange sense of humor, young lady, to laugh at your own pain,” he probed, the question framed inside the statement in a way which made neither discernibly obvious.  
            “You’ve a twisted sense of pain, old man, to judge my humor as strange,” she responded artfully.  
            _Oh, that was delicious. She’s quite good…this should provide some minor entertainment while I wait out this damn headache._ Garak grinned, letting just enough of his true amusement into the smile so it would appear genuine. Perhaps it was genuine. He’d given up figuring those details out long ago; the difference between genuine and fake tended to get in the way of the desired result.  
            “Perhaps I do,” he countered, unwilling to offer another opening. He continued, “you’re new to the station. I would have thought, the way gossip flies on this little island in the center of the storm, I’d have heard of a powerful Betazoid being on board…” he let the statement hang, there, knowing the normal ego of strong telepaths would make her jump to fill the space.  
            She snorted. The crudeness of the sound from such an otherwise dignified persona took him by surprise as she snorted a second time and waited a few seconds before following up with, “there’s no such thing as powerful Betazoids, these days. We manage to stay alive and fight the Dominion off and they come right back at us again, destroying more of our world with each battle, bending us more with each victory. I’m not a warrior. I left to get away from this war.”  
            Garak shook his head, genuinely puzzled by this turn in the conversation and why she’d chosen to take it. He pursued, “you’ve come to the wrong place to do that, I’m afraid. Or were you unaware we’re next to the frontlines, my dear?”  
            A beat, then, “I am perfectly aware of where we are, and who you are Mr. Garak.”  
            Garak widened his eyes, letting shock ask the question for him. She shook her head at him and rolled her eyes, the slightest upward quirk of her lips indicating sardonic amusement. _Ah, now that gesture was so **very** like something Julian might have done_. _Wait…when did I start thinking of him by his first name? Oh, sweet Hebetians, it was a while ago, wasn’t it?_ Garak purposefully leaked his dismay at the internal realization, further darkening his unwavering gaze on the woman. She sighed, quite audibly, before chuckling slightly and then, abruptly, gave him what he’d been asking for all along.  
            “I’m an editor for the Federation News Service. I normally work on the literary reviews, but I’ve been sidelined into war stories, these days. Jacob Sisko is one of the correspondents assigned to me. I came here because I believed he needed some personal confirmation of how important his reporting has been to us, as well as the literary merits in his writing that go far beyond simple journalism. Once I was in telepathic range of Jake, I knew I was about as right as I ever get. He’s a bit down, these days. But, aren’t we all?”  
            Garak grinned wide, his serpentine facial features looking particularly menacing and yet ecstatic all at once. Almost the easiest confession he’d ever gotten. She bared her teeth back at him in a smile rather like a tiger’s and Garak held in the grimace of his response. The woman obviously was aware of the game and had sacrificed a tidbit just to keep it going. _Oh, clever, dear, clever…you can’t lull me that easily, though._ He decided to let it slide and simply enjoy the delightful twists and turns this conversation was taking.  
            “So, you’re an editor. How did you get into that line of work?”  
            “I started off editing a small literary magazine on Betazoid and it grew from there until I was working for a large publishing house on Earth. The News Service said they could use my talents in their literature review section a while back. I enjoy it. I love stories, all kinds of stories.”  
            “Is that so? I consider myself rather good at telling tales,” Garak offered.  
            “I’m a storyteller, too,” she answered enigmatically, forcefully shifting her gaze toward her feet where they dangled off the biobed she sat upon. Garak could still see the telltale trace of amusement in the angle of her cheeks, the tilt of her chin. _This…could get interesting, if I just push for…_  
            “Really? I’m quite the collector of fine tales, as well. I think we’re both going to be stuck here, for a while. That patient Doctor Bashir wheeled into the surgical unit looked as if she needed quite a bit of work. Perhaps you could share a tale to pass the time?”  
            She looked up, a definite air of triumph on her face. _What’s that about?_ Garak consciously and quickly analyzed their entire dialogue up to this point, trying to detect exactly where she’d gotten enough of an upper hand to justify the look. He couldn’t find it.  
            “Oh, that sounds like a delightful idea, Mr. Garak. There’s one Jake recently told me, an ancient Earth folktale from a region called China. Would you care to hear it?”  
            Garak grimaced openly this time. Bashir had tried folktales. The former spy found them incredibly simplistic, and always with some moral or other to impart that was pedantically much too sugary. _So…human._ Ah, well, perhaps this would be different and after all, he had at least another hour to waste.  
            “Why not?”  
            She took a deep breath and opened her mouth, intoning in a way Garak had come to recognize as a universal “storyteller” voice, “Alright, then…”

_Lian-Yi Shou and the Water Dragon_

_Now, as everyone knows, dragons are mercurial creatures and none more so than a water dragon. By the nature of the element they inhabit, they must flex and stretch to fit the world around them, but they can also grind down the world to fit their purposes. They are secretive creatures, just as the water they belong to does not like to yield its treasures easily, neither does the water dragon. They have been known to drown a man simply for fishing where they did not want him to fish, or to rescue the shoe of a small girl and wash it ashore so that she need not go barefoot. They will allow a river to rush past its banks, mercilessly killing all in the water’s path, but they will also allow a slow flood to move fertile soil into the fields so the rice may grow. As such, they should be treated not only with utmost respect, as bringers of life, but with fear and avoidance, as bringers of death. Unlike fire dragons, they are not pure fury that needs to be controlled in order to be of use, unlike air dragons they are not free to roam too far—bound as they are by the need to serve the water they are part of—and unlike earth dragons, they never provide sure and steady footing, but always exist as if in the midst of a quake, even when appearing calm and placid._

_One day, a boy named Lian-Yi Shou was sent from his village, when their well became tainted by a groundswell, to collect water from the local river. In the story told in Northern provinces this river is small and self-contained, not part of a larger system. In the story told in the Southern provinces, this river is large and swift and feeds into the Yangtze, China’s greatest river. In both versions, the river is in a wooded area, dark and forbidding. The villagers warned the boy to be swift and careful and to at all costs avoid the dragon rumored to inhabit this river. They told him to be sure to pay tribute to the dragon, however, so that he might collect the water without being injured._

_Lian-Yi made it through the dark forest safely and approached the river near a spot where he knew the bank to be bare, the sun to shine down fully and access to the water easy. He set down his buckets next to a tree, but as he stooped to get the fruit he’d brought, a small monkey dipped down and stole his bag. The little trickster was up in the trees again in no time, moving swiftly away from where the boy stood and now Lian-Yi was without a gift for the dragon. He had to get the water for his village, however, so he decided to move ahead without the gift._

_As he moved past the last trees toward the brush that surrounded the sandy riverbank, he noticed something shining on the other side and realized, almost too late, what it was. The dragon was reposing on the bank, sunning itself. Lian-Yi was terrified, as well he should be, for the dragon could easily turn around and devour him with its sharp teeth. However, as he looked through a hole in the bushes, he noticed the intricate detail of the dragon’s scales and found himself too intrigued to look away._

_As he watched, the scales shifted, the pattern ever changing, from black and white into grey and silver, from blue and yellow into crimson and green. He was a smart boy, drawn to mysteries and he longed to decipher the pattern of these scales. The more he saw, the more fascinated and awed he became. Suddenly, the terrifying beast was more than pure fear to the boy, though he was certainly still quite afraid. Instead, what lay before him now was a mystery and beauty like none he had ever seen and he was determined not to sacrifice his chance to stand this close to something so dangerous and yet so exciting._

_Eventually, the sun dipped and the beast stood, shaking itself and sliding effortlessly back into the river. Lian-Yi waited until the sun was much lower and he was sure the dragon had swum much further downstream before emerging the bushes and filling his buckets until they were quite heavy. He set off back home, but did not forget what he had seen. When the village elders asked him if he’d made sure to leave his tribute while avoiding the dragon, he told them only that the tribute had been stolen, but that he’d gotten the water anyway. He was not sure why he kept what he had seen to himself, but he was sure it was not something he could share. The elders warned him that next time he should stay safe and not risk invading the dragon’s territory without tribute again._

_Now, what Lian-Yi didn’t know was that the water dragon had caught the human’s scent before the monkey stole the boy’s gift. It had tracked the scent and witnessed the thievery. When it saw the boy approaching the river anyway, it was caught in an internal conflict. It’d carefully weighed the options. The dragon should have killed the boy; to not pay tribute was unacceptable. However, the courage the boy displayed, whether intentional or not, was stunning. The dragon, for whatever reason, could not bring itself to slay the man-child. Likewise, it was not inclined to lower itself back into the river just yet. It wished to bask in the sun and noticing the boy’s fascination, decided to amuse itself by giving him a good show, changing scales at will to provide a most dramatic visual._

_Instead of becoming more frightened, which was the appropriate response to this display of the dragon’s power, however, the little human became more interested, leaning further into the bush to observe the creature more closely. The dragon was unable to determine who exactly was more fascinated at this point, itself or the boy, and simply allowed the observation to go unchecked until the sun was no longer warming its sinuous length. The dragon, bothered that it had slipped its guard so completely, shook itself in frustration before diving back beneath the river’s surface, determined to swim as far away from the disconcerting gaze of the boy as possible. At this point, he didn’t care the youth had no tribute to give him; he would let him have the water without it._

_Time passed, Lian-Yi grew and matured, although not yet an adult, when another swell of ground water again contaminated the village’s supply. They again sent Lian-Yi Shou to collect water from the river, having him put the fruit in his pockets this time. Unfortunately, the little monkey in the tree by the bank was clever and figured out quickly how to pick his pockets for the treasure, ignoring Lian’s shouts of foul play as it swung away across the branches. Lian was angry and alone and frustrated after another trip through the dark and foreboding forest. He swallowed back these feelings and again took up his buckets to head for the open sandbank. What he saw there this time caught his breath._

_Now, this is again where the stories diverge. In the Northern provincial story, the dragon was a sore and pathetic creature, snarling and attacking anyone who came near, with Lian ever the only exception. You see, it considered itself a magnificent creature, great in service to the water to which it was bound, and could not understand why it was trapped in such a small, locked-off, little-known stream.  In the great rivers, the water dragons can meet with each other at the convergences and are thus less alone. This dragon did not have that luxury. In the Southern provincial story, the dragon is gentle and kind unless provoked, in which case it was a horrible beast, responsible for killing many men and women that crossed it. In both stories, however, the creature lay on the bank, bloodied by an unknown attacker, its brilliance harshened by its horrible condition._

_Now, Lian-Yi was intelligent, if you’ll remember, and he knew how to heal some wounds. Gathering herbs and leaves from the forest around him, he carefully approached the dragon, irregardless of his personal safety. While such an action may seem to deny his intelligence, it wasn’t simply that he was too naïve or blind to know any better. He had great fear and trepidation in his heart, but he also had great courage and empathy and would not allow this utterly amazing creature to die. In the Northern tale, the dragon almost kills him, but allows itself to be healed. In the Southern tale, the dragon willingly submits to the boy’s ministrations. In both cases, the boy risked his life to save the dragon and in thus doing, earned a trust that water dragons do not frequently bestow upon humans._

_When Lian-Yi first spoke to the dragon, he asked it who had wounded it, but the great beast refused to answer. It was a question Lian-Yi would never have an answer to, not until many years later. However, the beast, in the Northern tale, decided to abate its loneliness by allowing the boy to continue to come to the river on many occasions and take water at will, but only if he conversed with it so the memories of those conversations would help it survive the times it spent alone. In the Southern tale, it decided to indulge the boy, out of paternal regard for him, by allowing the same thing. The boy continuously shifted between fear, frustration and elation, trying simultaneously to understand the nature of the beast and conversely appreciate the dangerous, potentially violent, new friend he had made._

_When the river flashed in ragged flooding, the boy castigated the dragon for allowing settlers close to the river to drown. The dragon was unmoved. When the river slowly, from snowmelt, overflowed, passing through the forest to the rice fields beyond, watering and fertilizing and providing the villagers with sustenance, the boy praised the dragon for its kindness. The dragon was unmoved. When Lian-Yi finally learned that it was one of the dragon’s own kind, in a jealous rage over territorial claims, who had injured it so seriously all those years ago, he gave the dragon his heartfelt comfort. The dragon was unmoved._

_As he grew, Lian-Yi continued to gain confidence and friends among the villagers, eventually growing weary of his inability to evoke sympathetic emotion from the volatile water dragon. In his last visit to the river after many years, grown and almost completely matured into manhood, the dragon, feeling abandoned, tried to bite him and threatened his friends. The boy responded in kind, wounding the dragon sufficiently to leave it wary of his continued presence. Later, the dragon learned that the boy had always held this weapon on his person, concealed from all, even the dragon, and that it had been part of what weighed the boy down enough to stay by the dragon, even when scared. Whether by mutual agreement or from anger Lian-Yi Shou and the dragon had now grown apart. The bond, whatever caused it in the first place, was broken._

_Now, this story has two endings, depending on whether it is told in the Northern provinces or the Southern provinces:_

_In the Northern climes, Lian-Yi, now a man, attempts to reconcile with the water dragon because it stopped allowing anyone from the village to take water from the river or fish in the river or bathe in the river. The dragon refuses to listen and the man grabs it by the tail when it tries to walk away. The water dragon is furious with this insinuation, and in a fit of pique, turns on Lian-Yi and devours him, not whole, but bit-by-bit and in a most hurtful manner, with the poor man suffering terribly before his death. Upon finishing the task, the dragon is immediately appalled by what it has done. It is filled with grief and retreats back to the isolated river from which it came, refusing to allow the river banks to ever again overflow, neither in violent flood or resurrecting irrigation. Shou’s family and friends move far from the river, so betrayed do they feel by the dragon’s actions. No man ever again drowns in the river, but also, the water is no longer safe to drink, tainted by the sorrow of the dragon and the blood of Lian-Yi._

_In the Southern climes, a great war takes place and Lian-Yi, a grown man, goes to serve his general. When he realizes that the dragon could be a great asset to their side, especially when a specific battle centers around a bridge that crosses the great river the dragon inhabits, he suggests using this asset to the general. The general’s men capture the dragon and it reluctantly helps, because it is afraid the province’s enemies will taint the river with their foul deeds. Before the war is over, however, the dragon tries to escape back to its river. Lian-Yi chases it down and catches it by the tail, refusing to let go. The dragon, taken by surprise by his friend’s attack, cannot sufficiently fight back. The human accidentally pulls too hard, and the beautiful and intricate pattern of dragon scales are yanked right off its hide, revealing ugly skin beneath. The man is intimidated, but does not back away, instead tries to carry the dragon, realizing that it must be returned to the river so that it can regrow the protective scales. Unfortunately, they cannot make it in time, and the dragon dies from the exposure, but not without first forgiving Lian-Yi for his mistake. Lian-Yi Shou carries the body of the dragon back to the river so it can rest where it was intended to exist and the river becomes sweet with the flavor of the beast’s sacrifice._

            “That…was an interesting story. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one before.” Garak and Isada both turned their heads toward the doorway to see Bashir in his red surgical scrubs, an inscrutable expression on his face as he looked between the two of them. The Betazoid smiled at him, kindly, and tilted her head toward Garak.  
            “Well, since you didn’t hear the beginning of it, being busy in surgery—in fact I don’t think I sensed you until about half-way through—maybe Mr. Garak can share the rest of it with you, later.”  
            Bashir inclined his head slightly toward her, crossing his arms hesitantly in front of his chest. Without looking at Garak, he said, “Maybe he can, at that. But, usually, folktales have an underlying moral or societal expectation they’re trying to teach. Hearing the end of both stories, I’d have to say that the first version is definitely a warning not to befriend dragons, maybe even the second story is, too.”  
            Isada laughed outright and Garak looked at her, quizzically. He was sure he’d heard more than Bashir’s simplified moral in the first ending, but he wanted to know what her version of the moral would be. _Interesting, since she’s probably in both our heads right now, what kind of synthesis she can come up with. Nothing I’ll be happy with, I’m sure._ Isada looked over at him sharply and now he was certain she could read past his defenses. In fact, even Bashir’s genetically enhanced mental control probably couldn’t keep her out. He saw the doctor stiffen out of the corner of his eye and knew Bashir had come to the same realization. _My, but you are a dangerous one, dear lady. So glad you’ll be leaving shortly and I won’t be responsible for alleviating the threat._ The Betazoid narrowed her eyes at Garak. She then looked between the two men, before breaking into a full grin, the most natural Garak had yet to see on her face. _Oh no. You can’t possibly…_  
            “Well, that’s a great hypothesis, but I’d say that the even bigger moral to the first ending is that even dragons can make mistakes and feel regret over them,” she said quickly, still grinning, a lilt to her voice.  
            “Ah,” Garak broke in, “but there’s still a dead boy, at the end. Certainly not a punishment he deserved, since he was simply trying to serve his village, the way any responsible citizen should. Not a very good moral, there. Very bad dragon, if you ask me, whether it was capable of regret or not.”  
            “Oh, come on, Garak! It’s obvious the water dragon was hurt by Lian’s rejection of it. You can’t blame it for doing what came naturally. It _is_ a dragon, after all,” the passion in the doctor’s voice reminiscent of many a literary debate held during lunches so long ago.  
            Garak simply raised his eyeridges speculatively, and pursed his lips, unable to concede such a ridiculous point. _Even if you’re far more correct than I’ll ever let you know, Julian._  
            “Ahh,” the storyteller’s voice broke in, “but you’re both forgetting the second ending. What’s the moral there?”  
            “That even dragons can be complete fools when they let their emotions get the better of them,” Garak filled in smoothly.  
            Bashir rolled his eyes and groaned at Garak, advancing toward the Cardassian’s biobed, arms still tightly crossed over his chest, agitation showing in his jerky torso movements.  
            “No, no, no, that’s what the moral would be if it was a Cardassian tale, Garak, but you’re forgetting, this is something from Earth’s history, so the moral is far more human than that!”  
            Garak sat up swiftly, ignoring the slight spinning it sent through his head, pointedly digging at Bashir’s assumption, “Well, then, what, pray tell, my dear Doctor, do you think the moral is? Something sufficiently sappy and sentimental about the power of friendship, I suppose?!”  
            “No! That even an intelligent and sensitive man can make a terrible mistake that costs him a very dear friend, that’s what! That no matter how bad a relationship gets, it could always be worse, because you could lose what you’ve fought so hard to hold on to for all those years,” he ended, strangely, suddenly quiet, his hands dropping to his sides, his expression one of pure awe, as if he couldn’t believe his own words.  
            Garak refused the urge to let his jaw drop, instead tilting his head slightly to the side in a very serpentine movement and looking at Bashir through partially narrowed eyes. _And you have no clue what you just said, my obtuse young man…do you? Do you?_ He closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted and nauseas. He lowered himself back onto the biobed, unable to trust himself to continue looking at Bashir without giving away something he definitely couldn’t afford to give away. He felt Bashir’s arm move in the space over his head, adjusting the readout on the scanner. He sighed then felt fingers pressed lightly against his cartoid, near his eyeridge, searching for a pulse easily seen on the readout, a totally unnecessary gesture. _Ah…maybe you do. Maybe you do._  
            “You still need at least another forty minute’s rest for the anti-inflammatory to cut down properly on the neural swelling. You shouldn’t have sat up like that. Stay still for a while. And no more getting knocked in the head with lamps. I’ll have the Chief hook up a more secure light source for your workbench. Considering the work you’re doing in there, these days, I’m sure I can get him to make it a priority.”  
            With his eyes still closed, “that…would be more than I need, and the Chief is a busy man. Thank you, though. I’ll find a way to secure the light myself.”  
            Bashir let out an impatient sigh, obviously still a little flustered, “right, whatever. Just take care, okay. I don’t want to see you in here again any time soon, at least not if it’s because you’re injured.”  
            Garak almost winced, once again bordering on annoyance, before relaxing as he heard the clarifier added after “any time soon.” _‘At least not’…yes, Julian, at least not._ “I will endeavor to remain uninjured, I promise you, Doctor Bashir. I’m sure you’ll appreciate such an effort on my behalf taken solely to lighten your workload in the future.”  
            “Oh, well, yes, when you put it that way, I’d very much appreciate it, Garak,” Bashir responded, his voice dripping with sarcasm and fading a bit as he walked toward Isada’s biobed to tend to her arm. Garak knew if he’d opened his eyes when Julian spoke, he would have seen that impossible smirk on the doctor’s face, the wondrous uninhibited grin the officer wore when intensely happy or amused. If Garak opened his eyes in this weakened state, he would have been done for, unable to do anything but tell the truth, faced with that wide smile. _He really could rip my scales off without even trying._ Garak suppressed a shiver.  
            “You know, you two completely ignored the other implicit moral present in both versions of the story,” he heard the young Betazoid say, still with that amused lilt in her voice.  
            “I thought that was the first one I got,” Bashir teased, “lift the arm slightly…like that…good.”  
            “Ouch. That’s still sore, you know. And, no, you only got what you wanted, there. It’s called the fallacy of ‘reading in,’ meaning you read what you wanted into the story, not what it actually said,” she replied.  
            “Oh, well, we can’t have me committing a fallacy, now can we? By all means, while I’m busy repairing all the damage to your arm, do share what exactly the _true_ moral is.”  
            To Garak’s great satisfaction, the last thing the Cardassian heard before slipping off into a concussion-induced drowse was Isada’s slightly mocking voice, responding to Doctor Bashir:  
             “Let the dragon lie. You try to grab the tail, and no matter what version you’re telling, it ends badly.”


End file.
